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ROWFANTIA 

An Occasional Publication of 

The Rowfant Club 

Number IX November 1921 




f'. 



J»^-T J^^V" -.>^'». ■^J^ 






The Early Years of 
The Saturday Club 



One hundred and twenty-five copies of this 

ninth number of Rowfantia printed on 

American Vellum paper in the 

month of November, ig2i. 

This is number// 1, 



^l1^g»>J^.^ .!>- o» I- 




THOMAS LYNN JOHNSON 



The Early Years of 
The Saturday Club 

by 

Thomas Lynn Johnson 




Cleveland 

The Rowfant Club 

1921 



r?3 
•I 



Copyright, 1922, by 
THE ROWFANT CLUB 



H- 



uAa 3( 1922 



The Early Years of 
The Saturday Club 

WHEN a lad I became greatly- 
interested in the poems of 
James Russell Lowell and I 
had great pleasure in reading the 
"Vision of Sir Launfal", "Under the 
Willows", The "Commemoration 
Ode", "Biglow Papers", and others. 
It was through Lowell's poems that I 
first learned of The Saturday Club. 
In his poem on Agassiz : 

/ see in vision the warm lighted 

hall 
The living and the dead I see 

again, 

7 



8 The Early Years of 

And, but my chair is empty, 'mid 

them all 
'Tis I that seem the dead; they 

all remain 
Immortal, changeless creatures 

of the brain. 

This poem was dated February, 
1874, sent to Charles Eliot Norton 
and published in the Atlantic some 
months later. Thus I heard of The 
Saturday Club and learned that 
Agassiz, Emerson, Lowell and other 
distinguished men were members. 
The information I could later secure 
was very meager and uncertain, but 
I always had a deep interest in this 
unusual group. 

In 191 8 a splendid volume "The 
Early Years of The Saturday Club" 
was issued under the editorship of 
Mr. Edward Emerson and I gladly 
became the owner of a copy. My 
interest thus early awakened and re- 



The Saturday Club 9 

cently stimulated is responsible for 
this paper. 

In the summer of 1855 eleven men 
of distinguished ability and each 
occupying a prominent place in the 
life of Boston agreed to meet for 
monthly dinners. As early as the 
thirties there were casual meetings 
for interchange of opinions and 
acquaintance and in 1844 Emerson 
wrote in his journal "Wouldn't it be 
a good cipher for the seal, etc., two 
porcupines meeting with all their 
spines erect and the motto 'We con- 
verse at the quill's end.' " 

Some attempts were made prior to 
1855 to inaugurate a dinner club and 
Mr. Horatio Woodman, a lawyer, 
who liked the society of cultivated 
men and possessing a skill in getting 
people together, became the father of 
the club. During the summer of 
1855, Francis H. Underwood, then a 
young man of thirty, was busily en- 



lO The Early Years of 

gaged in trying to start a magazine 
and desired to interest the literary 
men of Boston, and he competed a 
bit with Woodman in attempting to 
get the club established. What 
Underwood desired was to have it 
back of the New Atlantic. Mr. 
Holmes, later, writing of The Satur- 
day Club, "The magazine and the 
club have often been thought to have 
some organic connection and The 
Atlantic Club has been spoken of as 
if there was or had been such an 
institution, but it never existed." 

The fact seems to be that for a 
few years so many of the contributors 
to the Atlantic were members of the 
"Saturday" that Emerson's journal 
expressed the situation: "We had a 
story one day of the meeting of The 
Atlantic Club when the copies of the 
new number of the monthly were 
J brought in. Everyone rose eagerly 
to get a copy and then each sat down 



The Saturday Club ii 

and read his own article." In 1856 
these friends, under the guiding hand 
of Woodman, passed from the for- 
mative period into a club, but yet 
without a name. The members were 
Agassiz, Richard H. Dana Jr., John 
Sullivan Dwight, Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, 
James Russell Lowell, John Lathrop 
Motley, Benjamin Peirce, Samuel G. 
Ward, Edwin P. Whipple, and 
Horatio Woodman, the eleven. Long- 
fellow's name does not appear. In 
March 1857 he wrote ^'Dined with 
Agassiz at his club which he wishes 
me to join and I think I shall." He 
did almost immediately, for in May 
he writes "We have formed a dinner 
club once a month at Parker's . . . 
we sit from three o'clock until nine 
generally, which proves it to be 
pleasant." Felton and Holmes had 
also come in and the membership 
had grown to fourteen, a very dis- 



12 The Early Years of 

tinguished company upon whom 
Harvey D. Parker looked down from 
his gilt frame, four poets, one essay- 
ist, one biologist and geologist, a 
mathematician, one classical scholar, 
one musical critic, an historian, one 
judge, two lawyers, and a banker. 

Mr. Woodman assumed the burden 
of the business arrangements and 
managed the feasts. He seemed to 
know how to do this acceptably 
and evidently possessed an intimate 
acquaintance with the culinary ex- 
cellence of the Parker House. The 
charges were divided among the 
members, each member paying for 
his guest. If the members forgot to 
come and failed to notify Woodman 
the charge was sometimes large, since 
those present paid for those absent. 
The editor tells us of one time when 
only three came and the bill was 
seven dollars apiece. A real dinner 
was eaten, seven courses at least, 



The Saturday Club 13 

with sherry, sauterne, and claret. All 
the members lived nearby except those 
coming from Concord. 

Mr. Ward, one of the early mem- 
bers, writes : ''Agassiz always sat at 
the head of the table by native right 
of his large good fellowship and in- 
tense enjoyment of the scene, his 
plasticity of mind and sympathy . . . 
I well remember, amongst other 
things, how the club would settle 
itself to listen when Dana had a story 
to tell. Not a word was missed, and 
those who were absent were told at 
the next club what they had lost. 
Emerson smoked his cigar and was 
supremely happy and laughed under 
protest when the point of the story 
was reached." 

Referring to this same period 
Holmes wrote "At that time you 
could have seen Longfellow invari- 
ably at one end — the east end — of the 
long table, and Agassiz at the other. 



14 The Early Years of 

Emerson was commonly near the 
Longfellow end, on his left. There 
was no regularity, however, in the 
place of the members. I myself 
commonly sat on the right hand side 
of Longfellow so as to have my back 
to the windows. I think Dana was 
more apt to be on the other side. The 
members present might vary from a 
dozen to twenty or more. Conversa- 
tion was rarely general — there were 
two principal groups at the ends of 
the table. 

"The most jovial man at the table 
was Agassiz. His laugh was that of 
a big giant. There was no speechify- 
ing, no fuss of any kind with consti- 
tution and bylaws and other such 
encumbrances. I do not remember 
more than two infractions of the 
general rule of quiet and decorum. 
These were when Longfellow wrote 
a short poem on one of Agassiz' 
birthdays, and the other was when I 



The Saturday Club 15 

wrote a poem in honor of Motley, 
who was just leaving for Europe." 

Again, concerning one of the early 
meetings. Longfellow had resigned 
his professorship and Lowell was to 
take his place and was starting to 
Europe for a year's study. Norton 
writes "Longfellow was at the head 
of the table and Felton opposite him. 
Lowell was at Longfellow's right and 
Emerson at his left, and the rest of 
the party was made up of Holmes 
and Appleton and Parsons and 
Agassiz and Peirce and eight or ten 
others, all clever men. Longfellow 
proposed Lowell's health in such a 
happy and appropriate way as to 
strike a true keynote of the feeling of 
the time. Then Holmes read a little 
poem of farewell that he had written, 
and then, after an interval filled up 
with conversation, he produced two 
letters addressed to Lowell, one from 
Rev. Homer Wilbur and the other 



1 6 The Early Years of 

from Hosea Biglow. They were 
very cleverly done, full of humor and 
fun, and made great shouts of laugh- 
ter which continued on through the 
evening to roll up in great waves from 
the end of the table where Felton and 
the best laughers generally were 
seated. It was really a delightful, 
genial, youthful time, and had Lowell 
just come back instead of being just 
about to go off, nothing would have 
been wanting." 

Now, a word of biography. Agas- 
siz was born in French Switzerland 
and through the influence of Sir 
Charles Lyell had been asked to de- 
liver a course of lectures in Lowell 
Institute. *'His great enthusiasm 
and the charm of taking for granted 
popular interest in a remote subject, 
his genial face, his interesting foreign 
accent and facile blackboard drawing 
won the game completely." All 
audiences fell under his spell and the 



The Saturday Club 17 

following year he was appointed pro- 
fessor in Harvard and became her 
most conspicuous teacher. Here he 
remained until his death and his 
Museum is his monument. 

Richard H. Dana Jr., born in 
Cambridge 1 8 1 5. On account of bad 
eyes he was sent around the Horn in 
his junior year in college on a trad- 
ing vessel and wrote that classic ''Two 
Years before the Mast." He be- 
came an admiralty lawyer, but he 
devoted much time to looking after 
that bedeviled chap lost in the city, 
the common sailor. He espoused 
the cause of the free soilers; 
championing with rare earnestness 
the cause of the slave ; lashing with 
his invective the rich conservative 
element of Boston. Dr. Charles 
Eliot said of Mr. Dana "He was In- 
terested in anything pertaining to the 
w^ell being of the human race." 

John Sullivan Dwight, one of 



The Early Years of 



the original members, survived with 
Holmes, Lowell, and Judge Hoar "to 
become one of the incorporators of 
the club in 1886. He was the only 
member of the club who represented 
primarily the art of music." Mr. 
Howells says of him "John Dwight, 
the musical critic and a nature most 
musically sweet, was always smilingly 
present," and Lowell in his "Fable 
for Critics" coupled Hawthorne and 
Dwight. In making Hawthorne the 
fates had used some womanlike 
material. 

The success of her scheme gave 

her so much delight 
That she tried it out again 

shortly after in Dwight. 

He was born in Boston in 18 13, a 
son of Dr. John Dwight. 
He died in 1893. 

There, too, the face half rustic, 
half divine, 



The Saturday Club 19 

Self poised, sagacious, freaked 
with humor fine — sat Emer- 
son. 

Listening with eyes averse I see 
him sit 

Pricked with the cider of the 
Judges wit. 

The club was a source of great de- 
light to Emerson where he could meet 
his old friends and make new ones. 
During the winter months he was 
away a large part of the time earning 
his living, lecturing. He was not 
given to much talk and it is reported 
that he never laughed aloud. At an 
unexpected shot of wit his face was 
likely to break up almost painfully 
"although he could control the sound 
entirely." He was the oldest mem- 
ber of the club, having been born in 
1803. 

Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar was 
born in Concord 18 16, graduated at 



20 The Early Years of 

Harvard in 1835, giving the English 
oration at commencement. Then a 
year's teaching at Pittsburg; after- 
ward becoming a very successful 
lawyer. When a member of the 
Massachusetts Senate some manu- 
facturers deprecated certain resolu- 
tions passed against slavery and Hoar 
replied "I think, Mr. President, that 
it is quite desirable that the legislature 
of Massachusetts should represent 
its conscience as its cotton." He was 
a member of the joint high commis- 
sion for settlement of differences 
between the United States and Eng- 
land. He was attorney general in 
Grant's cabinet and later appointed 
to the United States Supreme Court 
in 1869, but he was rejected by the 
Senate. 

Mr. Emerson says that none of the 
original members of the club are more 
closely identified with it in the 
memory and imagination of the pre- 



The Saturday Club 21 

sent members than the author of the 
"Biglow Papers." Of himself he 
writes in The Fable for Critics: 

There is Lowell, who's striving 

Parnassus to climb 
With a whole bale of Isms tied 

together with rhyiue, 
His lyre has some chords that 

would ring pretty well, 
But he'd rather by half make a 

drum of the shell, 
And rattle away till he's old as 

Methusalem 
As head of a march to the last 

New Jerusalem. 

At the organization of the club 
Lowell was not quite forty, yet he had 
produced much of his poetry, won a 
distinctive place as a prose writer and 
lecturer on literary topics and was the 
natural choice as editor of the Atlan- 
tic at its founding in 1857. Lowell 



22 The Early Years of 

and Holmes were the brilliant talkers 
and no member of the club was more 
loved than Lowell. Let me give you 
part of the vision coming to him there 
in Italy when he wrote his poem on 
Agassiz : 

The garrulous memories 

Gather again from all their far- 
flown nooks, 

Singly at first, and then by twos 
and threes, 

Then in a throng innumerable, 
as the rooks 

Thicken their twilight files 

Toward Tintern's gray repose 
of roofless aisles; 

Once more I see him at the 
tablets head 

When Saturday her monthly ban- 
quet spread 

To scholars, poets, wits, 

All choice, some famous, loving 
things, not names. 



The Saturday Club 23 

And so without a twinge at 

others fames; 
Such company as wisest moods 

befits f 
Yet with no pedant blindness to 

the worth 
Of undeliberate mirth, 
Natures benignly mixed of air 

and earth, 
Now with the stars, now with 

equal zest 
Tracing the eccentric orbit of a 

jest. 

Concerning Motley let me quote 
Holmes: "I saw him, the beautiful 
bright eyed boy with dark waving 
hair, the youthful scholar, first at 
Harvard and then at Gottingen and 
Berlin, the friend and companion of 
Bismarck, the young author making 
a dash for renown as a novelist and 
showing elements which made his 
failures the promise of success in a 



24 The Early Years of 

larger field of literary labor, the delv- 
ing historian burying his fresh young 
manhood in the dusty alcoves of 
silent libraries to come forth in the 
face of Europe and America as one of 
the leading historians of the time; the 
diplomatist, accomplished, of capti- 
vating presence and manners, an 
ardent American, and in due time an 
impassioned and eloquent advocate of 
the cause of freedom, reaching at last 
the summit of his ambition as minister 
at the Court of St. James." 

Benjamin Peirce was born in Salem 
in 1809 and during his career as pro- 
fessor in Harvard was, like Agassiz, 
the first man in America in his field, 
mathematics. One of his students 
tells of seeing a memorial tablet in 
Paris the year after the great Exposi- 
tion whereon were inscribed the 
names of the great mathematicians of 
the earth for two thousand years; 
Archimedes is head of the list and 



The Saturday Club 25 

Peirce closes it, the only American. 
Speaking of the denunciation of 
science by clergymen Peirce said "I 
cannot conceive a more monstrous 
absurdity. How can there be a 
more faithless species of infidelity 
than to believe that the Deity has 
written his word on the material 
universe and a contradiction of it in 
the gospel." 

Samuel Gray Ward, a special 
friend of Emerson, was born in 
Boston in 18 17. After graduating 
at Harvard he accompanied Mr. 
George Ticknor to Europe for a 
year of study. Returning he became 
a farmer at Lenox, but later, as 
stated by his wife, "He found a hole 
in his pocket that could be mended 
in no other way than giving up the 
farm." Joining his father Thomas 
Wren Ward, who was a representa- 
tive of the Barings in America, 
he became a banker. Mr. Ward 



26 The Early Years of 

effected the purchase of Alaska for 
the United States, but early in the 
War of Secession moved his office 
from Boston to New York, where he 
continued to represent the great 
London house. In 1870 Mr. Ward 
withdrew from active business and 
resided in Europe for some years. 
He lived until 1907, having been a 
member of the club for fifty years, 
surviving all of the original members. 
Edwin Percy Whipple, essayist, 
born at Gloucester in 18 19, began as 
a bank clerk. At twenty-two he 
wrote a review of the first series of 
Emerson's essays and at twenty-four 
he made his general reputation by a 
brilliant article on Macaulay in the 
North American Review. He be- 
came librarian of the Merchants' 
Exchange Library at its founding. 
On the organization of The Saturday 
Club he had a sure place as one of 
the "representative men possessing 



The Saturday Club 27 

genial qualities." Apropos of his 
book in 1876 "American Literature" 
Whittier wrote "With the possible 
exception of Lowell and Mathew 
Arnold, the ablest critical essayist 
of our time." I mention two of 
his good sayings from Emerson's 
journal. Whipple said of the author 
of "Leaves of Grass" "That he had 
every leaf but the fig leaf." Doctor 
Bartol in the funeral discourse quotes 
another, "I know, said one to him, 
your idea of a public library; if you 
had a million dollars" -"If I had 
the million," Whipple answered, "I 
should not have the idea." He 
passed out of fashion, as it were, and 
withdrew more and more from notice 
and died in 1886. 

Horatio Woodman, founder, born 
in Buxton, Maine, 1821, taught in a 
country school, but came to Boston 
to study and practice law. Dr. 
Gould, the mathematician, denomi- 



2 8 The Early Years of 

nated Woodman as a "genius broker" 
and says Charles Francis Adams 
"The definition was a happy one be- 
cause he had a craving for the 
acquaintance and society of men of 
reputation and, indeed, lacked only 
the industry to have been a sort of 
a Boswell . . . The great achieve- 
ment of his life, in his own mind, was 
the founding of The Saturday Club 
and his connection with that club 
which could only have come about 
through being its founder, was the 
thing on which he most prided him- 
self." Woodman had unusual dietetic 
dexterity and at one of the dinners 
arranged prior to 1855 he was cook- 
ing some mushrooms at the table. 
Some doubt was expressed as to the 
advisability of eating them and 
Dwight was deputed to taste and re- 
port. He bravely experimented and 
Emerson writes, mildly declared "It 
tastes like the roof of a house." 



The Saturday Club 29 

Woodman became seriously involved 
in business matters in 1879 ^^^ ^^" 
came greatly depressed. During this 
year he was lost from a Sound 
steamer during a trip to New York. 
This is a hurried mention of the 
original members of the club prior to 
1857. This was an important year 
in literary Boston for the new mag- 
azine was launched and christened by 
Holmes "The Atlantic." Another 
important event was founding the 
Adirondack Club, the crystallization 
of a sort of a crusade in nature's be- 
half carried on by William J. Still- 
man. Stillman was born in New 
York and came to Boston crude and 
unlettered, possessed by a noble en- 
thusiasm for preserving the forest 
home in the Adirondacks. The Club 
acquired a large tract of some twenty- 
five thousand acres, including Amper- 
sand Pond, and the following summer 
the Club went to look at their wooded 



30 The Early Years of 

empire. An interesting item in Mr. 
Emerson's book is a photograph of 
the painting of the "Adirondack 
Club" by Stillman. 

In 1857 Longfellow, Holmes, and 
Felton became members of the club. 
On May 28, 1857, they celebrated 
Agassiz' 50th birthday. Longfellow 
had a poem and Lowell and Holmes 
read humorous lines. In 1858 
William H. Prescott, the histor- 
ian, was elected to membership, and 
he was the first member the club lost 
In death. Whittier was also elected 
this year. 

"Although Whittier wrote poems 
about several members of The Satur- 
day Club,- — Sumner, Fields, Lowell, 
Agassiz; and although the last poem 
he ever composed was addressed to 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, it remains 
true he never came into very close 
personal relations with any of them, 
unless an exception be made of 



The Saturday Club 31 

Whipple and Fields. He was re- 
spected and admired by the club 
group, but had to fight his own battles 
single handed in youth, and in his old 
age he remained a man apart from 
confidential intimacy with other men." 
Whittier's publishers gave a dinner 
on his 70th birthday, December 17, 
1877. He disliked going and said 
to an old kinswoman "I think I 
will not go as I will have to buy a 
new pair of pants," but he finally 
accepted the invitation and "gravely 
endured the ordeal." At this dinner 
Mark Twain achieved such signal ill 
success and offended the guests and all 
New England with his story of three 
frontier tramps trying to pass them- 
selves off to a lonely miner as Long- 
fellow, Emerson, and Holmes. Mr. 
Paine, his biographer, tells us that 
later Mark Twain came to believe 
his speech was humorous although he 
wrote letters of apology to the 



32 The Early Years of 

three, but felt he could not approach 
Whittier. Whittier died September 
7, 1892, a few days before having 
written his last poem for Dr. Holmes' 
83rd birthday. 

The last stanza of Holmes memo- 
rial poem: 

Lift from the quarried ledge a 

flawless stone; 
Smooth the green turf, and hid 

the tablet rise, 
And on the snow white surface 

carve alone 
These words — he needs no more 

HERE WHITTIER LIES. 

In January, 1859, the club cele- 
brated the centennial birthday of 
Burns, and Whittier's poem in remem- 
brance was submitted : 

In smiles and tears, in sun and 
showers. 



The Saturday Club 33 

The minstrel and the heather 
The deathless singer and the 

flowers 
He sang of live together. 

Holmes and Lowell also brought 
tributes and Emerson "spoke in a 
marvelous fashion." On February 
22, Lowell's 40th birthday was cele- 
brated, Holmes and Emerson bring- 
ing poems. It was during this year 
that Nathaniel Hawthorne became 
a member of the club. Of Haw- 
thorne, Lowell writes in his Fable for 
Critics : 

When nature created him clay 

was not granted 
For making a full sized man as 

she wanted 
So, to fill out her model, a little 

she spared 
Of some finer grained stuff for 

a woman prepared 



34 The Early Years of 

And she could not have hit a 
more excellent plan 

For making him fully and per- 
fectly man. 

Hawthorne was probably not a fre- 
quent visitor at the club ; shy, reserved, 
and silent, and his death came in 
May, 1864. In 1868 Lowell wrote 
to Fields "Pray who wrote the article 
on Hawthorne in the last Atlantic? 
... I found it very interesting and 
on the whole the most adequate thing 
about Hawthorne. . . I don't think 
people have any kind of true notion 
yet what a master he was. God rest 
his soul ! Shakespeare I am sure was 
glad to see him on the other side." 

This year of 1859 Tom Appleton 
came into the club, brother-in-law of 
Longfellow, a wit, an amateur artist, 
writer of verses, and traveler. John 
Murray Forbes was also elected to 
membership this year; merchant, 



The Saturday Club 35 

banker, and railroad builder, and for 
many years president of the great 
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy rail- 
road system. 

In i860 Charles Eliot Norton was 
the only person invited to member- 
ship. Norton was intimate with 
more distinguished personages, per- 
haps, than any man of his times, and 
in the "Lives and Letters" of the dis- 
tinguished persons you are always 
finding letters to Norton. He was a 
quiet, scholarly gentleman, with an 
unusual gift for friendship. 

In 1 861 the conflagration of the 
great war came and the entire mem- 
bership of the club was profoundly 
aroused. Holmes wrote "Brother 
Jonathan's Lament:" 

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of 

the sun, 
We can never forget our hearts 

have been one. 



2^ The Early Years of 

Our foreheads both sprinkled in 

Liberty's name, 
From the fountain of blood with 

the finger of flame. 

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of 

the sun, 
There are battles with Fate that 

can never be won! 
The star flowering banner must 

never be furled 
For its blessings of light are the 

hope of the world. 

Go then our rash sister! afar 

and aloof, 
Run rash in the sunshine away 

from our roof; 
But when your heart aches and 

your feet have grown sore 
Remember the pathway that 

leads to our door! 

Woodman, lifted out of himself by 



The Saturday Club 37 

the blossoming of the flag in every 
town and village after Sumter wrote 
his fine poem: 

Old Greece was young and 

Homer true 
And Dante's burning page 
Flamed in the red along our 

flag 
And kindled holy rage. 
God's gospel cheered the sacred 

cause 
In stern prophetic strain 
Which makes his right our 

covenant 
His psalms our deep refrain. 

A little earlier Lowell had written 
^'Jonathan to John:" 

It don't seem hardly right, 

John, 
When both my hands was full 
To stump me to a fight, John, 



38 The Early Years of 

Your cousin, tu, John Bull. 
Who made the law that hurts, 

John, 
Heads I win— ditto tails? 
J. B. was on his shirts, John, 
Unless my memory fails. 

And In the dark autumn of 1861 
Lowell wrote his "The Washers of 
the Shroud"- 

God give us peace! not such as 
lulls to sleep. 

But sword on thigh and brow 
with purpose knit. 

And let our Ship of State to har- 
bor sweep. 

Her ports all up, her battle 
lanterns lit, 

And her leashed thunders 
gathering for their leap. 

Mr. Emerson says of this year 
four new members came in. One was 



The Saturday Club 39 

a quiet scholar, James Elliot Cabot, 
and Emerson's biographer. "One a 
patriot of widest scope, a reformer 
not by speeches, but by great and 
difficult deeds, genially done," Sam- 
uel Gridley Howe. "The third a 
Unitarian minister of influence, a pro- 
fessor at Harvard and a noble meta- 
physician," Frederick Henry Hedge. 
"The fourth a physician by educa- 
tion, but attracted from the pro- 
fession towards promoting modern 
public enterprises," Estes Howe. 

In 1862 Cornelius Felton, "our 
hearty Grecian of Homeric ways", 
the president of Harvard died, Feb- 
ruary 27th. During this dreadful 
year, with its long list of dead and 
wounded following the Peninsula 
Campaign, Holmes made his stirring 
appeal "Never or Now:" 

From the hot plains where they 
outnumbered perish 



40 The Early Years of 

Furrowed and ridged by the 

battlefield' s plow 
Comes the loud summons. Too 

long you have slumbered, 
Hear the last Angel Trump, 

Never or Now. 

Charles Sumner was the only member 
chosen for the club this year, 1862. 
In a letter from Judge Hoar to 
Emerson, *'Sumner Is dead as the 
telegraph will have told you ... I 
held his hand when he died. His 
last words were 'Judge, tell Emerson 
how much I love and revere him.* 
And in answer, I replied 'He said 
of you once that he never knew so 
white a soul.' " 

In 1863 came the Emancipation 
Proclamation and a great jubilee was 
held in the Boston music hall under 
the direction of John Sullivan Dwight 
and Emerson's poem afterwards 
called "The Boston Hymn" was read: 



The Saturday Club 41 

The word of the Lord by Night 
To the watching Pilgrims came. 

This year Norton and Lowell took 
charge of the North American Re- 
view and Lowell also published his 
second series of ''Biglow Papers," 
and Whittier, Quaker as he was, 
wrote his "In War Time", showing 
that he was in a measure reconciled to 
the sacrifice of human life. This year 
the distinguished father of two sons, 
each of whom achieved even greater 
distinction, was the only member 
elected, Henry James, Sr. 

In 1864 the club celebrated the 
300th anniversary of the birth of 
Shakspeare, "It was a quiet and happy 
evening filled with good speeches 
from Agasslz, Dr. Frotheringham, 
Winthrop, Palfrey, White, Curtis, 
Hedge, Lowell, Hilliard, Clarke, 
Governor Andrew, Hoar, and Weiss, 
and a fine poem by Holmes read so 



42 The Early Years of 

admirably well I could not tell 
whether In itself it was one of his 
best or not. The company broke up 
at II 130," so wrote Emerson. 

On May 24th this year Hawthorne 
was laid under a group of pines in 
Concord and Longfellow returning 
from the funeral wrote : 

Ah, who shall lift that wand of 
magic power 

And the lost clew regain? 

The unfinished window in Alad- 
din's tower 

Unfinished must remain. 

This year John Albion Andrew, al- 
ways spoken of as Governor Andrew, 
was elected to the club, and chosen 
with him was Martin Brimmer, a 
cultivated gentleman. James T. 
Fields, the editor and later publisher, 
and Samuel Worcester Rowse, a 
portrait painter, were likewise elected. 



The Saturday Club 43 

In 1865 Agasslz planned a trip of 
exploration to Brazil and the Ama- 
zons together with Mrs. Agasslz and 
a party of naturalists. The club gave 
him a dinner on March 23rd and 
Dr. Holmes read with affection and 
pleasure a farewell to Agassiz: 

God bless the great Professor 
And the Madam, too, God bless 

her 
Bless him and all his band. 

July of this year brought Har- 
vard's commemoration of her dead 
sons lost in the Civil War and Lowell 
read his great "Commemoration 
Ode,"— this his portrait of Lincoln: 

How beautiful to see 

Once more a shepherd of man- 
kind indeed 

Who loved his charge, but never 
loved to lead; 



44 The Early Years of 

One whose meek flock the people 

joyed to be 
Not lured by any cheat of birth 
But by his clear grained human 

worth 
And brave old wisdom of sin- 
cerity. 
They knew that outward grace 

is dust 
They could not choose but trust 
In that sure footed mind^s un- 
faltering skill 
And supple tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to 
spring again and thrust. 



The country^s earnest, brave, 

far-seeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading 

praise, not blame, 
New birth of our new soil, the 

first American. 



The Saturday Club 45 

Judge Hoar wrote Lowell "What 
an occasion that Commemoration 
was. My, it was the whole war con- 
centrated and you have embalmed 
its essence and flavor forever." 

No new members were chosen in 
the year 1865. In the year 1866 
Agassiz came home from Brazil. 
Robert CoUyer, who was Emerson's 
guest, writes "When Agassiz came 
into the room they joined hands, 
made a ring and danced about him 
like a lot of boys, while Emerson 
stood apart, his face radiant." Dur- 
ing this year Dr. Jeffries Wyman was 
elected to membership. Of Wyman 
Holmes wrote: "So he went on 
working . . . quietly, happily, not 
stimulated by loud applause, not 
striking the public eye with any 
glitter to be seen afar off, but with 
a mild halo about him which was as 
real to those with whom he had his 
daily walk and conversation as the 



46 The Early Years of 

nimbus around a saint's head in an 
altar piece." Lowell wrote : 

He widened knowledge and 

escaped the praise; 
He wisely taught because more 

wise to learn; 
He toiled for science, not to 

draw men's gaze. 
But for her love of self denial 

stern. 
That such a man could spring 

from our decays 
Fans the soul's noble faith until 

it hum. 

On February 27th came Long- 
fellow's 60th birthday and Lowell 
brought his beautiful tribute: 

With loving breath of all the 

winds his name 
Is blown about the world, but to 

his friends 



The Saturday Club 47 

A sweeter secret hides behind 

his fame, 
And love steals shyly through 

the loud acclaim 
To murmur a God bless You! 

and there ends. 

* * * 

Surely if the skill in song the 

shears may stay 
And of its purpose cheat the 

charmed abyss. 
If our poor life be lengthened 

by a lay, 
He shall not go, although his 

presence may. 
And the next age in praise shall 

double this. 

In May of this year Mr. Dana was 
appointed counsel for the United 
States, assisting Mr. WilHam M. 
Evarts in the trial of Jefferson Davis. 
In October Governor Andrew died. 



48 The Early Years of 

The only member elected this year 
was E. W. Gurney of Harvard. 

1868. On May 23rd, the club met 
at the house of Fields at a farewell 
dinner to Longfellow. "There was 
much pleasant talk, a poem by O. W. 
H., and the farewells" writes Mrs. 
Fields. His reception in England 
was most cordial and enthusiastic. 
He writes "I swooped down to Cam- 
bridge and there had a scarlet gown 
put on me and the students shouted 
'Three cheers for the red man of the 
west.' " Lowell writes him "Of course 
we follow your triumphal progress in 
England with pride and sympathy. 
They share the triumph and willing 
not to partake of the gale, which, I 
should think, must endanger your hat 
now and then. Still it must be de- 
lightful on the whole and I am glad 
you went over to gather your laurels.'* 
No new member was chosen this 
year 



The Saturday Club 49 

1 869-1 870. Grant had been elected 
President in 1868 and chose Judge 
Hoar a member of his cabinet, attor- 
ney general, and later appointed Mot- 
ley as minister to the Court of St. 
James. 

Judge Hoar had so antagonized 
the Senate and was unsympathetic 
with the policy of the administration, 
that President Grant asked for his 
resignation, which was promptly fur- 
nished, and in July Secretary Fish 
requested Motley's return as minister. 
He refused to resign and was later 
recalled. Governor Jacob D. Cox 
wrote the story of why Judge Hoar 
ceased to be attorney general, which 
was published in the "Atlantic" for 
August, 1895. "I was invited with 
General Sherman to dinner by The 
Saturday Club. Emerson, Long- 
fellow, Lowell, and Holmes were all 
there, and I need not say it was an 
occasion to remember. It only con- 



50 The Early Years of 

cerns my present story to tell what 
occured just before we parted. Mr. 
Longfellow was presiding and unex- 
pectedly I found that he was speaking 
to me in the name of the club. He 
said they had been disturbed, much 
disturbed by rumors then current that 
Motley was to be recalled from Eng- 
land on account of Senator Sumner's 
opposition to the San Domingo 
Treaty. They would be very far from 
seeking to influence any action of the 
president which was based on Mr. 
Motley's conduct in his diplomatic 
duties, of which they knew little and 
could not judge, but they thought the 
President ought to know, if the rumor 
was well founded, he would in their 
opinion offend all the educated men of 
New England; it could not be right to 
make a disagreement with Mr. Sum- 
ner prejudice Mr. Motley by reason 
of the friendship between the two. I 
could only answer that no body of 



The Saturday Club 51 

men had a better right to speak for 
American men of letters and I would 
faithfully convey their message." 

As stated above, Motley would not 
resign and was recalled. 

Longfellow writes December 31st, 
1870, "The year ends with a club 
dinner, Agassiz is not well enough to 
be there, but Emerson and Holmes 
of the older set were and so I was 
not quite alone." 

William Morris Hunt was chosen 
a member in 1869. 

The editor adds "Two new mem- 
bers were chosen during this year 
(1870) Charles Francis Adams, up- 
right, strong, clearheaded statesman, 
who through years of anxiety and 
peril served his country bravely and 
well," and Charles William Eliot, 
President of Harvard University. 

During these years the club had as 
visitors many distinguished people 
and from letters and reminiscences 



52 The Early Years of 

we learn an invitation was much 
appreciated and a visit highly cher- 
ished. 

When Dickens came on his second 
visit to America in 1867 much atten- 
tion was shown him in Boston and 
several dinners given in his honor. 
A member records this episode at his 
visit to the club. Charles Dickens 
dined with us during his second visit 
in 1867. He compounded a jug or 
pitcher, we call it, of gin punch for 
which his father was famous. No 
witch at her incantations could be 
more rapt in her task than Dickens 
was in his as he stooped over the 
drink he was mixing." 

The English poet Arthur Hugh 
Clough lived for some time in Cam- 
bridge and his great gifts were fully 
recognized by the club and he was 
on several occasions a welcome guest. 
Of Clough, Lowell writes in his 
Vision: 



The Saturday Club 53 

Young head time tonsured 
smoother than a friars, 

Boy face, but grave with answer- 
less desires, 

Poet in all that poets have of 
best. 

But foiled with riddles dark and 
cloudy aims, 

Who hath now found sure rest, 

Not by still I sis or historic 
Thames, 

Nor by the Charles he tried to 
love with me. 

But, not misplaced, by Amos 
hallowed brim 

Nor scorned by Santa Croces 
neighboring fanes, 

Happy, not mindless, whereso- 
ever he be, 

Of violets that today I scattered 
over him. 

Dr. Marion Howe of Columbia 
University, son of Samuel Gridley 



54 J^he Early Years of 

Howe, writes the editor of having 
been taken by his father when a boy 
of fifteen to one of the meetings, 
"Tom Appleton was presiding and ex- 
ploited the virtues of Kentucky mut- 
ton" and Dr. Holmes likened the 
various phases of Christianity as 
hypothetical magnets drawing the 
particular kind of people they had an 
affinity for. After listening for a 
time to the talk and having looked at 
the celebrities his father asked him to 
withdraw before the dinner came on. 
At the Shakespeare dinner in 1864 
it was planned to invite as many 
guests as members and in this way 
each member would have the privilege 
of paying for one guest. Fifteen 
guests were invited, Governor An- 
drew, W. C. Bryant, George Ban- 
croft, G. C. Verplanck, Richard Grant 
White, Edward Everett, George 
Ticknor, Dr. Asa Gray, John G. 
Whittier, John Neal, Edwin Booth, 



The Saturday Club 55 

Professor Child, George W. Curtis, 
James T. Fields, and R. H. Dana 
Sr. Several of these did not come 
as shown by Mrs. Fields' list. 

You will recall I quoted from 
Emerson's journal concerning this 
meeting where good speeches were 
made by Agassiz, White, Lowell, 
Clarke and others and Emerson was 
called on. "He arose, looked about 
him tranquilly for a moment or two, 
serene and unabashed, unable to say 
a word "upon a subject so familiar 
from his boyhood." It is possible 
that Emerson had forgotten the 
manuscript of "Shakespeare" printed 
in his collected works and was thus 
unable to speak. Upon the manu- 
script was a note that it was prepared 
for this occasion. 

Thoreau the sage from Walden 
had been asked and went a few times. 
In a letter to an English friend, 
Cholmondely, who asked if there 



S6 The Early Years of 

were no clubs in Boston he writes: 
*'I have lately got back to that 
glorious society called Solitude, where 
we meet our friends continually, and 
can imagine the outside world also to 
be peopled. Yet some of my acquain- 
tance would fain hustle me into the 
almshouse for 'the sake of society' as 
if I were pining for that diet, when I 
seem to myself a most befriended 
man, and find constant employment. 
However, they do not believe a word 
I say. They have got a Club, the 
handle of which is in the Parker 
House at Boston, and with this they 
beat me from time to time, expecting 
to make me tender or minced meat, so 
fit for a club to dine off. 

Hercules with his club 

The Dragon did drub; 

But More of More Hall 

With nothing at all, 

He slew the Dragon of Wantley, 



The Saturday Club 57 

Ah! that More of More Hall knew 
what fair play was. Charming, who 
wrote me about it once, brandishing 
the club vigorously (being set on by 
another, probably) , says now, serious- 
ly, that he is sorry to find by my 
letters that I am ^absorbed in politics/ 
and adds, begging my pardon for his 
plainness, 'Beware of an extraneous 
life !' and so he does his duty and 
washes his hands of me. I tell him 
that it is as if he should say to the 
sloth, that fellow that creeps so slowly 
along a tree, and cries from time to 
time, 'Beware of dancing!* 

''The doctors are all agreed that I 
am suffering for want of society. Was 
never a case like it? First, I did not 
know that I was suffering at all. 
Secondly, as an Irishman might say, 
I had thought it was indigestion of the 
society I got. 

"As for the Parker House, I went 
there once, when the Club was away, 



58 The Early Years of 

but I found it hard to see through the 
cigar smoke, and men were deposited 
about in chairs over the marble floor, 
as thick as legs of bacon in a smoke- 
house. It was all smoke, and no salt, 
attic or other. The only room in 
Boston which I visit with alacrity is 
the Gentlemen's Room at the Fitch- 
burg Depot, where I wait for the cars, 
sometimes for two hours, in order to 
get out of town. It is a paradise to 
the Parker House, for no smoking is 
allowed, and there is more retirement. 
A large respectable club of us hire it 
(Town-and-Country Club), and I am 
pretty sure to find some one there 
whose face is set the same way as my 
own.'' 

Here is a picture from one of 
Lowell's letters dated September 20, 
1861. 

"I dined the other day with 
Anthony Trollope, a big, red-faced, 
rather underbred Englishman of the 



The Saturday Club 59 

bald-with-spectacles type. A good, 
roaring, positive fellow who deafened 
me (sitting on his right) till I thought 
of Dante's Cerberus. He says he 
goes to work on a novel 'just like a 
shoemaker on a shoe, only taking care 
to make honest stitches.' Gets up at 
^Yt every day, does all his writing be- 
fore breakfast, and always writes 
just so many pages a day. He and 
Dr. Holmes were very entertaining. 
The Autocrat started one or two 
hobbies, and charged, paradox in rest 
— but it was pelting a rhinoceros with 
seed-pearl — 

"Doctor. You don't know what 
Madeira is in England. 

"Trollope. I'm not so sure it's 
worth knowing. 

"Doctor. Connoisseurship in it 
with us is a fine art. There are men 
who will tell you a dozen kinds, as 
Dr. Waagen would know a Carlo 
Dolci from a Guido. 



6o The Early Years of 

"Trollope. They might be bet- 
ter employed! 

"Doctor. Whatever is worth 
doing is worth doing well. 

'Trollope. Ay, but that's beg- 
ging the whole question. I don't 
admit it's Worse doing at all. If 
they earn their bread by it, it may be 
worse doing (Roaring). 

"Doctor. But you may be as- 
sured— 

"Trollope. No, but I mayn't 
be asshored. I won't be asshored. 
I don't intend to be asshored 
(Roaring Louder) ! 

"And so they went it. It was 
very funny. Trollope wouldn't give 
him any chance. Meanwhile, Emer- 
son and I, who sat between them, 
crouched down out of range and had 
some very good talk, the shot hurt- 
ling overhead. I had one little 
passage at arms with T. a propos of 
English peaches. T. ended by roar- 



The Saturday Club 6i 

ing that England was the only country 
where such a thing as a peach or a 
grape was known. I appealed to 
Hawthorne, who sat opposite. His 
face mantled and trembled for a 
moment with some droll fancy, as one 
sees bubbles rise and send off rings 
in still water when a turtle stirs at 
the bottom, and then he said, 'I 
asked an Englishman once who was 
praising their peaches to describe to 
me what he meant by a peach, and he 
described something very like a 
cucumber.' I rather liked Trollope." 

Shortly after the beginning of the 
Civil War, Mr. Samuel Gray Ward, 
and other patriotic citizens, founded 
the Union Club, which had its home 
in the Lawrence and Lowell houses 
on Park Street. For many years The 
Saturday Club has held its monthly 
dinners at the Union Club. 

About the time the Club reached 
the Fiftieth Anniversary of its found- 



62 The Early Years of 

ing, a commission was given Mr. 
Edward Emerson to prepare a his- 
tory of its founding and the early- 
years. Mr. Norton, last survivor of 
the early fellowship, who was Presi- 
dent at that time, wrote Mr. Emer- 
son the wish of the Club that he 
serve as historian. 

"The Club is about fifty years 
old, and it occurred to me that 
it would be well if a history of 
it were written before its story 
became faint and before more 
legends of dubious validity 
gathered around it. ... I 
spoke of this a day or two since 
to President Eliot and found 
that he was quite of my mind. 
When he asked me who could 
do the work, I told him that I 
hoped you might be willing to 
undertake it, and this sugges- 
tion he received. ... I hope 



The Saturday Club 63 

you will entertain it readily, and 
even that it may allure you. The 
subject seems to have many 
attractions, for it admits of 
studies of the character of many 
of the most remarkable men in 
our community during the last 
half century." 

Mr. Emerson urged Mr. Norton 
to write the history, as he was one of 
the early group, but he said he was 
too old, but would aid in every way 
by giving his recollections. Getting 
information from Mr. Norton, who 
survived for only a little time, and 
persons of an older generation, and 
a painstaking study of the books 
written by the members, and their 
letters, journals, and poems, he has 
done a remarkable piece of work — 
we can really visualize the table at 
''Parkers" and enjoy the wit and 
wisdom of that famous, unique group 



64 The Saturday Club 

of men each holding first place in 
his particular line of endeavor, the 
names of whom we place on our Roll 
of Honor as Americans. 



The Saturday Club 

Members Elected Since 1 857 



William H. Prescott * 


1858 


John G. Whittier * 


1858 


Nathaniel Hawthorne * 


1859 


Thomas G. Appleton * 


1859 


John M. Forbes * 


1859 


Charles E. Norton * 


i860 


J. Elliot Cabot * 


1861 


Samuel G. Howe * 


1861 


Frederic H. Hedge * 


1861 


Estes Howe * 


1861 


Charles Sumner * 


1862 


Henry James * 


1863 


Martin Brimmer * 


1864 


James T. Fields * 


1864 



6s 



66 The Early Years of 



S. W. Rowse * 


1864 


John A. Andrew * 


1864 


Jeffries Wyman * 


1866 


E. Whitman Gurney * 


1867 


William M. Hunt * 


1869 


Charles F. Adams * 


1870 


Charles W. Eliot 


1870 


Charles C. Perkins * 


1871 


Francis Parkman * 


1873 


Alexander Agassiz * 


1873 


Richard H. Dana Sr.* 


1873 


Wolcott Gibbs * 


1873 


Horace Gray * 


1873 


Walbridge A. Field * 


1891 


Henry L. Higginson 


1893 


Edward W. Hooper * 


1893 


Henry P. Walcott 


1893 


W. Sturgis Bigelow 


1894 


Moorfield Storey 


1894 


John Fiske * 


1896 


Samuel Hoar * 


1896 


Charles S. Sargent 


1896 


Joseph B. Warner 


1896 


Charles F. Adams, 2nd. 


1898 



The Saturday Club 67 



Charles R. Codman * 


1898 


James M. Crafts * 


1898 


William G. Farlow 


1898 


Roger Wolcott * 


1898 


William T. Sampson * 


1900 


William T. Councilman 


1900 


Robert Grant 


1900 


William Lawrence 


1900 


William C. Loring 


1900 


Francis C. Lowell * 


1900 


Henry S. Pritchett 


1902 


Edward N. Perkins * 


1873 


Asa Gray * 


1874 


William D. Howells * 


1874 


Edmund Quincy * 


1875 


Edwin L. Godkin * 


1875 


William B. Rogers * 


1877 


William Amory * 


1877 


James Freeman Clarke * 


1877 


Phillips Brooks * 


1877 


William W. Story * 


1877 


George F. Hoar * 


1877 


John Lowell * 


1880 


0. Wendell Holmes Jr. 


1880 



68 The Early Years of 



Theodore Lyman * 


1881 


William James * 


1881 


Francis A. Walker * 


1882 


Charles F. Adams Jr.* 


1882 


Frederick L. Olmsted * 


1883 


Raphael Pumpelly 


1883 


Henry H. Richardson * 


1883 


William Endicott Jr.* 


1883 


William C. Endicott * 


1885 


William W. Goodwin * 


1885 


John C. Gray * 


1887 


Edward C. Pickering * 


1887 


Thomas B. Aldrich * 


1888 


Edward W. Emerson 


1889 


A. Lawrence Lowell 


1903 


Bliss Perry 


1903 


Samuel W. McCall 


1904 


James Ford Rhodes 


1904 


Henry P. Bowditch * 


1904 


George F. Moore 


1905 


Samuel M. Crothers 


1906 


William Everett * 


1906 


Edv/ard W. Forbes 


1908 


Robert S. Peabody * 


1909 



The Saturday Club 69 

Richard C. Maclaurin 19 10 

Ellery Sedgwick 1 9 1 1 

George A. Gordon 191 1 

Henry James * 191 1 

Charles H. Haskins 191 1 

WiUiam R. Thayer 19 12 

Theodore W. Richards 191 2 

Gardiner M. Lane '^ 19 12 

Harvey Gushing 19 14 

M. A. DeWolfe Howe 19 14 

W. Cameron Forbes 19 14 

* Deceased 



Prepared for publication and pri- 
vately printed for The Rowf ant Club, 
on American Vellum paper, by 
The Arthur H. Clark Company 
Cleveland, mcmxxi 



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